


By Lamplight

by Zai42



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Amnesia, Anal Fingering, Do Not Archive, Gaslighting, Mind Manipulation, Multi, Non-Consensual Somnophilia, Overstimulation, Possessive Behavior, Sibling Incest, Warped Shows of Affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-02 04:57:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16780048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zai42/pseuds/Zai42
Summary: Tim wakes up hurt and confused, his memories gone, haunted by the sense that nothing is real. Luckily Danny is around to make him better.





	By Lamplight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flammenkobold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flammenkobold/gifts).



Tim didn't know for certain why he braced himself for agony when he woke up. Before his eyes even opened he cringed, fingers spasming into loose fists; but whatever pain he had been expecting didn't come, and his fists had clenched around soft sheets that kept his nails from digging into his palms. He opened his eyes and the room around him was softly lit, warm where he had been expecting cold greys.

  
"Sleep," said a voice. He didn't recognize it; he thought he should. "You're still hurt."

  
Tim tried to turn his head, and the movement blacked out his vision in a wave of dizziness he didn't have the strength to fight off. He sank back into unconsciousness before his vision could clear.

* * *

The next time he woke up, it was dark, and a panicky claustrophobia gripped him. His hand shot out into the darkness and sent something crashing to the floor; he bolted upright, sucking in heaving gasps of air, arms crossing over his chest, fingers digging into his shoulders.

  
The bed beneath him dipped. "Shh, shh," murmured someone in the dark. Tim's eyes rolled in his skull; all he could make out was the faintest outline of someone. "It's all right. You're safe. I'd turn on the lamp, but you broke it."

  
"Wh-where--who--"

  
"Hush," said the someone. A hand came to rest on his back and Tim twisted away from it, a jumbled protest at his lips. "Tim. You're all right."

  
"What happened? Where--why don't I remember--"

  
The figure hushed him again, then hummed something low and soft and familiar. Tim quieted, tried to focus on the melody over his own frantic breathing; it danced just outside of his recognition, elusive and ephemeral. "There," said the figure, when Tim had gone still next to it, "you see? You're safe with me."

  
"Y-yeah," Tim said, blinking as he came back to awareness. "I--I still don't..."

  
"You hit your head very hard," said the figure.

  
Tim said nothing, staring down at the pale suggestion of his hands on top of the covers. He flexed his fingers and felt bandages stretch taut around his knuckles. As his vision adjusted to the darkness, the awareness of pain came with it, fuzzy at first but growing sharper by the second. "I..." Tim trailed off, scrambling for the proper question. _How did I get here_ came to mind, but as he considered it, he realized he lacked the context for it. _What happened_ was closer, but still not _enough._ The more Tim thought about it, the more he realized he couldn't remember _anything--_ just his name and a massive blank space where his life should be.

  
The figure on the bed moved towards him again. "Maybe you should sleep some more," it suggested gently, fingertips brushing the short hairs on the back of Tim's neck.

  
"No," Tim said quickly. He kicked the covers off and swung his legs over the side of the bed, but when he tried to stand, he swayed dramatically. A hand closed around his elbow and guided him back to the bed. "Mirror," Tim said dizzily. "I--I want a mirror. And light. Please," he added as an afterthought.

  
The figure sighed, long-suffering and _so_ familiar. It said nothing, but offered Tim an arm and half-carried him across the room and into the bathroom.

  
The light was harsh and fluorescent and hurt Tim's eyes, but it was better than the darkness and the dreamy sense of unreality that went with it. He stumbled over to the sink and stared into the mirror.

  
He didn't need a frame of reference to realize he looked terrible. An impressive black eye, a bloody gash not quite completely hidden beneath gauze, something peeking out from his collar that looked like a particularly nasty burn--there was hardly a bit of him not covered in a bruise or a cut, but it was clear he had been...tended to. Tim prodded at a red spot on his neck and his fingers came away slicked with something that smelled medicinal.

  
"You...saved me?" he asked, hesitant, keeping his eyes firmly on his own reflection.

  
"I suppose...yes." The figure behind him shifted until Tim had no choice but to catch sight of its reflection; he shifted his gaze and didn't bother to disguise his staring. The figure was handsome, in his way, with bright eyes and pale, waxy skin. But there was something gaunt about him as well, a hollowness to his cheeks and a shadow beneath his eyes, though he smiled brightly enough. "It's good to meet you again," he said.

  
"I know you?" Tim blurted out, and immediately felt a rush of awkward guilt. "I--sorry, I didn't mean--"

  
His laugh was--off. Thoughts of broken music boxes flitted through Tim's mind before flickering out of existence. "I'm Danny." He extended a hand, smooth and cool when Tim took hold of it. "I'm going to take care of you."

* * *

Danny wouldn't answer too many questions at once. "I don't want to overwhelm you," he said. He was changing Tim's bandages, his fingers nimble and sure as if he had done so before, while Tim slept. "Why don't you tell me what you tell me what you remember?"

  
"Nothing," Tim said honestly. He tilted his head back so Danny could dab antibacterial cream onto the burns on his neck. "I don't remember what happened to me. I don't remember anything before that. I don't remember you." He paused; Danny made as if to move away, and Tim brought his hand up, catching the tips of Danny's fingers awkwardly, the medicine smeared on them making his grasp tenuous at best. "I--I feel like I should," Tim said. "It's like...like a _tug,_ like I--"

  
"Hush," Danny said tenderly, shifting his hand in Tim's grip, lacing their fingers together more firmly. "There was an accident, and I saved you, and brought you here."

  
"It's just...it's frustrating. Everything feels so...I want to know what's real."

  
Danny smiled and it didn't reach his glassy eyes. "Take a break from knowing," he said.

* * *

_Danny is going to take care of Tim, of course he is, he never stopped loving his brother--and besides, the skin can't be all bruised and burnt and bloody when he's made into a lovely doll. Nikola always says how important it is to use good materials._

  
_But there's something Danny likes about Tim while he's all helpless and hurting, the way he winces when Danny touches him so gently, the ruby-bright blood that seeps into his bandages. Tim is pretty when he suffers. Prettier when he lets Danny mop up his suffering and devour it._

  
_Tim sleeps heavier now than he did before, Danny thinks. He lies on his back with one hand curled next to his head and Danny touches him, so soft, so he won't wake, a palm skimming along his belly, a fingertip tracing his slack lips. He wonders when Tim would look like if Danny touched him like this when Tim was awake. If he would be as limp and docile then, with just his eyes open and glittering and watching._

  
_Danny frowns at this thought and withdraws his hand. "He isn't yours, anymore," he whispers, and Tim stirs, only briefly._

* * *

"What kind of accident was it?"

  
Tim was sitting up in bed, flexing his newly unbandaged fingers. His nails had mostly grown back.

  
"A very bad one," Danny said. "It wasn't your fault," he added. Tim glanced up, the faintest line of a frown between his brows. "A building collapsed."

  
Tim's eyebrows shot up at that. "A--" He cut himself off. "Was I...why was I in a collapsing building?"

  
"It wasn't supposed to collapse," Danny said.

  
Tim let out a brief bark of a laugh and lapsed into silence, staring vaguely at the wall. He wasn't sure how long it had been--he didn't sleep at any kind of regular intervals, and the light never changed in the room. It was always mostly-evening, barely-twilight, the darkness held off by soft gold light from the replaced lamp, or by the harsher light in the bathroom, if the door were left open. Sometimes there was food waiting for him when he woke up, though there wasn't a kitchen, wherever they were. It might have been a hotel room. Tim had never left it and had never asked about it.

  
"You'd think I would remember a building collapsing on top of me," Tim said.

  
"I'm glad you don't," Danny said, sounding on the edge of petulant. "It sounds awful."

  
"I wouldn't mind if it meant I could remember you," Tim said; Danny beamed at him, and Tim smiled without thinking about it.

* * *

"Where are we?"

  
"You ask so many questions."

  
Danny didn't sound angry, but Tim felt a rush of shame anyway. "I just...sorry."

  
Danny stared at him, face smooth and blank, then smiled in that vacant way he had, like it was painted on. "It's all right. It just seems an odd question, doesn't it? We're home, of course."

  
"Home," Tim said. He looked around the room, its atmosphere as cozy as ever--a constant state, unchanged by shifting sunlight or weather. The curtains were drawn, as they always were, and Tim considered crossing the room to part them. Wondered what he would see on the other side. Wondered if Danny would stop him.

  
"I guess we are," he said instead.

* * *

_Tim is mostly healed now, just a few stubborn bruises left, and the odd cut that threatens to scar. Danny thinks he would be all right with a little scarring. The scars Tim already has are quite dashing, and there's something he likes about the thought of Tim having scars that have to do with Danny instead of some creepy crawly bug woman._

  
_He sleeps just as deeply, and Danny worries over what he's dreaming about. He straddles Tim's thighs and works the blankets down his body, slow and careful. He had only meant to touch, to run his palms over Tim's lovely skin, but watching his eyes twitch and roll beneath closed lids lights a jealous spark in his chest._

  
_Danny leans forward, one arm curling possessively above Tim's head, his other hand coated in lotion as his fingers rub in slow circles over Tim's hole. "He's mine now," Danny whispers. Tim's breathing catches. Danny's fingers sink into him smoothly, his body lax and open. "Mine. Dream of me."_

  
_Danny fingerfucks him slow and methodical, the way eased by lotion and the way Tim's body is so soft and unresisting, like this. Danny imagines tossing Tim's legs over his shoulders and fucking him for real, pounding him into the mattress until he awoke in the throes of orgasm, but no--he is slow, and patient, even as he doesn't want to be. He slides in, a centimeter at a time, until his knuckles brush against Tim's perineum, then pulls out with the same agonizing slowness, again and again while Tim lies limp and unknowing before him._

  
_"Dream about me," Danny whispers in his ear. He twists his finger inside Tim, listens to the unconscious, breathless noise it forces from his throat. "Dream about Danny. Just Danny. Just me."_

  
_When Tim comes, he is still asleep, makes a faint little groaning noise that Danny finds deeply satisfying. He massages his insides until his cock finally stops twitching, rubs his fingertips over Tim's hole when he pulls out until Tim whimpers and stirs. Danny leans in to press a kiss to his slack mouth. "Mine," he whispers, and pulls back to clean away the evidence._

* * *

_I'm not here to indulge in your death wish._  
Tim woke with that thought buzzing in his mind, and he opened his eyes slowly as he turned it over and over, dissecting it from every angle. Not his voice, not Danny's--some third party, intruding on their unchanging little bubble. A new spot of color in Tim's otherwise white, empty expanse of memory.

  
"Good morning," Danny said, even though the room was still the same golden-dark it had always been. "I think we're going to go for a walk, today."

  
"Oh," Tim said, as if this were everyday and expected and not a sudden upheaval of routine. "I should get ready, then."

  
"There's clothes for you on the counter," Danny singsonged after him, as he made his way into the bathroom.

  
Beneath the hot spray of the shower, Tim rolled the sentence over in his mind. _I'm not here to indulge in your death wish._ He tried to place the voice that had said it--hissed it, really, close by and furious, each syllable clipped and precise. Tried to imagine that voice saying something else and came up empty--tried to remember why he might have had a death wish and came up emptier.

  
"Ready to go?" Danny asked as Tim stepped back into the bedroom.

  
"Who else did I know?" Tim asked. "Before, I mean--I must have known other people."

  
Danny's painted-on smile didn't falter. "Well, of course," he said, offering Tim his arm and leading him towards the door. "We're going to see one of our friends today."

  
It wasn't a hotel they were in after all, but a house, tidy and compact in a way that reminded Tim of a dollhouse, cobbled together with neatly coordinated furniture and paint colors. It was immaculate, not so much as a corner of a rug nudged out of place.

Tim turned as the front door snicked shut behind them; it was painted a bright, cheerful red, like a--

  
"Come on," Danny said, and whatever simile had been on Tim's mind vanished. "We're going to see a friend."

  
"Who?" Tim asked, thinking of the low voice he had woken up hearing.

  
"Her name is Nikola. She isn't..." Danny lowered his voice, glanced around furtively, as if checking for eavesdroppers. "She hasn't been well, lately. But she'll be happy to see you!" he added, brightness returning to his tone. "Now come on."

  
Above them the sky was a bruised purple; the moon hung low and yellow and curved like a smile; the sodium orange glow of the street lights made the dampness in the air just visible. It was improbably picturesque, like they had stepped into a watercolor painting. The more Tim looked, the more convinced he became that he could see the brushstrokes in the clouds. Danny tucked himself against Tim's side and Tim clung to him, his reassuringly solid form, his heart racing as his grip on reality stuttered. "This is...real, isn't it?" he asked, a little frantic, a little hysterical.

  
"Of course it's real," Danny said. "Why wouldn't it be?"

  
"It feels...I feel..." Tim fumbled for words, failed, and tugged Danny closer.

  
"Close your eyes. We're almost there."

  
In the darkness behind his eyelids, Tim thought he saw dancers.

* * *

Nikola's house stood at the end of a dead end street, the only brightly lit house in sight. The door was red, though darker than Danny's. It matched the shutters.

  
Danny led Tim inside without knocking, calling out, "Nikola! I've brought Tim to come see you!"

  
From somewhere in the bowels of the house, a breathy voice called back, "In the workshop, darling!"

  
"Don't stare," Danny said, as they walked through the narrow entry hall. "Nikola hates it when people stare."

  
Tim nodded, but his eyes were on the display cases lining the walls, filled with rows upon rows of porcelain dolls.

  
There were more dolls in the "workshop," which was really more of a re-purposed bedroom. These dolls were not in display cases, but strewn across every surface, some intact but most in pieces, arms wrenched from sockets, eyes scooped out of faces. In the middle of the mess stood the woman Tim could only assume was Nikola, and he could see why Danny had warned him not to stare. He wondered if she had been in the same building he had been in when it had collapsed, just with no Danny to care for her in the aftermath.

  
"Danny, darling," she cooed, her voice fluttering and high, as far as possible from the voice in Tim's dream. She pulled Danny into a hug, kissed both his cheeks. "I'm so glad you're here!"

  
She turned to Tim and beamed at him. He smiled back weakly. "And you, of course, Tim," she said, limping forward towards him. He offered her a steadying hand, which she took gratefully; the skin of her hand was rough and calloused. "It's so good to see you all spry and healthy again," Nikola was crooning, leaning against him for support. Tim slipped an arm around her shoulders and she made a high-pitched noise of delight. "Danny tells me you're having trouble with your memories," she said.

  
"I am," Tim replied, glancing down at the top of her head. "But he's taking care of me."

  
"Of course he is," Nikola said. "What are friends for?"

* * *

_Later, when the drugs in Tim's tea have kicked in and he's out cold on the couch, Danny asks, "Can you help me?"_

  
_"Help you?" Nikola asks, tilting Tim's head this way and that to examine him more closely. She titters. "Help you what, darling Danny?"_

  
_"I want...I want him," Danny says. He inches towards them, protective. "I want to keep him."_

  
_Nikola's mouth remains fixed in a rictus grin as she turns to him. "Haven't I helped you?" she asks. "Who pulled all the nasty Eyes out of his head? Who made sure he wouldn't try to bury in axe in you the second he woke up?" Her tone is sweet and venomous._

  
_"Y-you did, Nikola," Danny says._

  
_"It cost me so much," Nikola says. She presses the back of a hand to her forehead, dramatic. "I'm already so weak. What more could you possibly need from me, sweet thing?"_

  
_Danny risks pressing forward. "I want him to be mine," he says. "Mine forever. He's remembering things, Nikola, it's trying to take him back. Make it stop!"_

  
_"Shut up." Danny stammers to a halt, lowering his gaze. "You want him?" Nikola's hand nudges Tim's leg until it falls off the couch, leaving his thighs open. "Take him. Make him yours." Her hand traces up, up, up, presses between Tim's legs, then dances higher to pluck open his clothes._

  
_"But the Eye--"_

  
_He stops, watches Nikola's fingers disappear between Tim's lips. "I hid him from it," Nikola says as she strokes Tim's tongue, then deeper, until Tim gags and begins to wake. "Burn it out of him, Danny! He should be yours, shouldn't he?"_

  
_She turns to Tim, whose eyes are open and glassy and tearing up from the press of her fingers at his throat. He gags weakly, but makes no move to shove her away. "You would like that--_

\--wouldn't you, Tim?" Nikola asked, and Tim's throat convulsed around her fingers. He felt dazed and dizzy and detached, and too late his fingers came up to scramble uselessly at Nikola's wrist. "Answer me," she sang sweetly.

  
Tim mumbled around her fingers; she pulled them free and he coughed, breaking the strands of saliva connecting his lips to her fingertips. "L-like wh--"

  
"What do you dream about, Tim?" Nikola asked. Her spit-slick hand pressed between his legs and he realized the jeans Danny had laid out of him were open.

  
"Dream?" Nikola pressed a palm against his cock, holding it to his stomach, rubbing in an absent kind of way--less trying to get him off and more playing with him. Tim lolled his head towards Danny, who was watching him with a hunger in his eyes Tim hadn't seen before.

  
Of course, he had also never noticed before that Danny's eyes were glass.

  
Again that creeping sense of unreality crashed over him, and he sucked in a hitching breath. "I don't know," he whispered, and his hips twitched as Nikola's hand dipped lower to fondle his balls. "It's...it's all confused, I--"

  
Nikola clicked her tongue. "Poor Tim," she soothed. "We'll help you, won't we?"

  
Tim watched Danny approach him, but it was distorted, jagged, the movement jerking like damaged film reel. Even so, he curled into Danny's touch, the last real and solid thing Tim had to cling to. "What are you?" he asked, and parted his lips when Danny kissed him. "Danny," he begged, arching up when Danny pulled back. He tried to hook an arm around Danny's neck and pull him back down into another kiss, but he only managed to flop weakly in his direction. "Danny, please tell me--"

  
Nikola pressed her plastic fingers into him, smooth and slick, and Tim's words choked around a moan. He didn't know how he knew her fingers were plastic, but the knowledge sat, indelible, in his mind. "We're going to take care of you," Danny said, pressing too-cool lips to his forehead.

  
Either the drugs or the nature of the things touching him made time flow strangely--thick, somehow, the strands of it snapping and droplets oozing together into a confused mass. When Danny fucked into him, he was on the floor with his head in Nikola's lap, his clothes strewn across the room, his own come painting his stomach, and he had no memory of any of it happening. As he sobbed, oversensitive and terrified, he slowly began to remember Nikola pumping four fingers into him, making him shake and cry out and come while Danny kissed him senseless.

  
"Do you remember now?" Nikola asked, eyes bright as she looked down at him trembling in her lap. Tim gasped and clutched at her, hips stuttering. He felt slick, used, and Danny was relentless, sinking wetly into him at a torturous pace, too fast to be gentle but too slow to be a mindless pounding. Instead he felt each thrust with painful precision, a swooping clench low in his belly, every muscle seizing with it.

  
Danny's fingers grasped his chin and tilted his face towards him; his thumb swiped over Tim's lower lip. "Mine," he whispered, then leaned in and kissed him before murmuring against his lips,

  
_"The show must go on."_

  
And all at once, Tim remembered everything, and he screamed.

* * *

_He had struggled, even if half-dead was being generous about his condition. Snarled and spat and cursed until Danny had come, and then the fight had gone out of him but only because he had thought he had finally died._

  
_They took from him, working memories free of his brain, until there was so little left of him that the Eye fixed on him found him as good as dead and turned its Sight elsewhere, and Tim had gone limp and dazed and compliant while the monsters he had tried to die to stop did as they pleased with him._

* * *

The first time Danny made him come, Tim did so with a howl, his back arching up off the floor, his face twisted up in fury and horror. Nikola shifted from cradling him to pinning him, her short bob of cheap, artificial hair framing her face as she smiled down at him. "There's our Tim!" she trilled. "Well, not _ours._ Yet."

  
"Let me--" was as far as he got before Danny, being mostly just skin and stitching and plastic and not having much of a refractory period, began moving again, thrusting shallowly. "No," Tim gasped, trying to squirm away; Danny had the audacity to look hurt.

  
"You don't understand," he said, hooking Tim's legs over his shoulders so he could lean in closer. "I've missed you so much. I--"

  
"You're _not--"_ Tim tossed his head back and groaned through gritted teeth, Danny's cock driving deeper into him with the new position. "Don't," he said, and hated how much it sounded like begging.

  
The second time he came, he cried, letting go of his anger and falling headfirst into misery and fear. _"Please,"_ he bit out--fuck his dignity, he would beg if it meant it would stop.

  
Danny stroked a hand through his hair, swiped away his tears methodically, leaned in to kiss him softly. Tim kept his mouth shut but didn't jerk away, just let Danny mouth at him before he pulled away and looked at him with something like disappointment.

  
He lost count after the fourth, maybe the fifth, going limp in Nikola's embrace and moaning like something possessed. He hurt, a wet, throbbing hurt, but he let his thighs fall open wider, canting his hips up towards Danny in a desperate attempt at appeasement. Danny hummed, pleased, and didn't stop. His hand came up to rub through the mess on Tim's stomach, smearing Tim's own come over his cock and giving it a few futile pumps. Tim whined, mindless, his eyes fluttering shut.

  
"Say you're mine," Danny said sweetly, leaning in to kiss him. "Don't leave me again," he mumbled against Tim's lips. Tim pulled away, breathing heavily, and for a moment Danny looked so afraid, so like he had looked the first time Tim had left him.

  
"Danny," Tim said. "I--I'm--"

  
"Let me save you from the Eye," Danny whispered. "You hate it, don't you? But you love me? So say it. Say it and you can belong to me."

  
_I'm not here to indulge in your death wish,_ Jon hissed, in the recesses of Tim's memories. Fine then--if Jon wanted him alive so badly, he would live.

  
"Yours," Tim mumbled, and pressed a feeble kiss to his brother's lips.


End file.
